Planned Parenthood Declined A $500,000 Donation From Tucker Max

When you spend the better part of a decade busting your ass to establish a reputation as the world’s greatest storytelling womanizer, you shouldn’t be too shocked when it sticks with you long after you’d like it to. At least that’s the lesson that frat god Tucker Max is learning now that he’s kind of, sort of trying to do something nice with the wealth and fame that he’s achieved since writing I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.

Max contacted his friend and Forbes contributor Ryan Holiday recently, asking for advice on a charity that he could donate $500,000 to, in order to both reduce his tax burden and promote his latest books. Holiday suggested that Max donate the money to Planned Parenthood in Texas to have a clinic named after himself. And that’s when the joke machine exploded.

At first Planned Parenthood was on board and grateful, but then someone apparently taught them how to use Google and they called and offered Max and Holiday a hearty, “Thanks but no thanks, broseph.”

Planned Parenthood: “We have concerns about accepting this donation, we understand what you write is satire, but we’re worried about the perception.”
Tucker: “I don’t write satire. I write about my life.”
PP: “Yes, well, we’re concerned about the perception of your writing.”
Tucker: “Perception? You mean you have a problem with me personally, or you’re worried what OTHER people think?”
PP: “I guess it’s the way you write about women.”
Tucker “What do you mean? I’m not negative towards women in my writing. Women love my writing; more than half my fans are female.”
PP: “Well…there are certain jokes you make we feel can be perceived in a certain negative manner.”
Tucker: “So because I made a fat girl joke you won’t accept a $500,000 donation?”
PP: “I wouldn’t characterize it that way.”
Tucker: “How would you then? I’m listening and I want your best quote.”
PP: “We don’t feel it would be appropriate, given Planned Parenthood’s mission and your body of work, to accept your donation.”
Tucker: “What? I thought Planned Parenthood’s mission was about helping women, not passing judgment on humor.”

Max, 35, has apparently been on a bit of a “growing up” kick, as he admitted back in January that he’s seen a therapist in the past to help him mature emotionally and get past the way he’s previously acted toward women. And he made one hell of a career out of being a complete dick to girls and reveling in the attention that millions of p*ssy-starved, finger-sniffing high school and college boys paid to him, his best-selling book and eventually the terrible movie that was produced from it. So he shouldn’t be shocked, surprised or even raise his eyebrow in the slightest because his reputation is sticking with him, specifically when he’s on this so-called “PR rehabilitation” and especially not when he also released two other books, Sloppy Seconds: The Tucker Max Leftovers and Hilarity Ensues, both sequels to his previous works.

HOWEVER, he does have a point. Love him or hate him, Max has never made it a secret that he’s a humorist, and at least he’s open about having regrets about the way he’s acted in the past. I guess it’s the right of the folks at Planned Parenthood to take money from whoever they want, but beggars shouldn’t really be choosers just because they disagreed with a dude’s quest to sleep with a little person.

[Vince’s Note: My humble opinion, if you enjoy tax-exempt status as a charity, you shouldn’t be able to turn down donations. Especially not when your reasoning is “hmm, too bro-y.”]

Why would Planned Parenthood want to accept money from someone who has made a living shaming people who make up most of their clientele? As an institution that deals with insane amounts of people every day I don’t blame them for wanting to be careful about who they deal with. Also, he wanted a building named after him. If that dumb fuck thinks $500,000 is going to get him a building his ego is way to inflated for help.

Yes! Instead of taking that $500K and using it towards helping low-income women receive medical care, they were absolutely right to tell this egocentric jackass who was trying in some small way to make right with his past idiocy that he should go pound sand. It’s not like they’re hard up for cash or anything.

Yes, imagine the conflict of interest a young texan girl will have when getting a baby sucked out of her cooter with a vacuum. They’ll just keep the baby or go with the old coat hanger before acquiescing to Tucker Max and his money.

Charities should be able to turn down donations to protect their public image. 500k to name a building after him? What the fuck? That’s not charity, its painfully self-aggrandizing. Real classy stuff. I’m sure they could use the money, but I don’t see the correlation between being tax exempt and being allowed to pick and choose who your institution associates with. If you feel it isn’t in the best interest of the charity, that it would in fact HURT the reputation of the charity and engender less donations in the future, the charity should have the right to make that decision, even if they may be wrong in their assessment of the donators character and impact.

I didn’t say they have to name the building after him (which is pretty douchey, and kind of torpedoes Tucker’s entire point), just that they have to accept the money. And if you required all charities to accept all donations, then they wouldn’t have to worry that any one donation would hurt their reputation, because they could just point to the law about having to accept all donations. Call it the beggars-can’t-be-choosers rule.

Plus it was in Texas. Who cares about them, they are barely a state anyway. A little storm came through today and did millions of dollars worth of improvements to Ft. Worth. They don’t want the money? Then Fuck Texas. Fuck Planned Parenthood. Fuck NBC’s Parenthood. It’s not like Planned Parenthood is on their uppers. Wasn’t it just a couple months ago they were all pissy because people without tits didn’t want to share the wealth with them?

Not trying to take his side, but he offered money, and they offered a “eh, someone will spin this against us” response. It does kind of make them suck, because they are acting out of place of pre-emptive defensiveness. I guess they don’t need money so badly after all.

Yeah, but they are Planned Parenthood. They have been bombed in the past and are still the target of death threats from crazy red necks on a daily basis. Given this, “acting out of a place of pre-emptive defensiveness” just seems like the wisest default mode of action to me.

Imagine someone not taking a donation from a P.O.S (look up dbag in the dictionary and it’s got this guys pic beside it) looking to promote himself. I know that taking donations from anyone is all the rave in the political world (see wall street supporting politicians for their kickbacks from the government) but, it’s nice to see someone actually display scruples. Tucker Max with the shtty tri-fecta. Shtty movies, shtty books, shtty person.

They probably thought it was a sting, instead of a publicity stunt. About a year ago, a creative fellow made and recorded a call to PP, posing as a redneck, and offering a donation, provided his money could be used only/primarily to abort black children. The PP employee was only too happy to oblige. If you were working the phone, and remembered that incident, and a guy claiming to be Tucker Max called up with that request, what would have been your response? Plus, PP gets most of their budget from taxpayers (look it up), so they don’t really need the money all that much anyway.

Any organization that helps give out birth control and does anything to prevent more of peoples’ stupid wiener kids running around can have twice as much of my money, as far as I’m concerned. I wish there was one on every corner and they went around slapping birth control patches on random women as a preventative measure. More abortions = lower crime. That’s a fact.

If 100% of Tuckers goal was to spend 500K to get his name on a building so he could get some attention and have a tax write off then he’s the big winner here. He’s getting 70% of the attention he was looking for by PP turning him down and he can still put that 500K in any other charity he wants where he’ll get even more attention for that. PP are out 500K and they look like they’re afraid of the media.